Jalia in the North (Jalia - World of Jalon) (5 page)

A Dish Served…

Daniel awoke to the sound of a badger snuffling among the remnants of their evening meal. It was well before dawn and the fire had died down to little more than grey embers. He looked over to where Jalia was sleeping and saw to his amusement that the little girls had snuggled close during the night. Since Jalia’s senses were razor sharp, he knew she must have decided to let them. The children were probably the reason she hadn’t woken to the sound of the badger, it was unusual for her to let anyone sleep so near to her.

Daniel mused on his own relationship with Jalia. They had sex when it suited her, which was not often and they certainly fought from time to time. They never slept together. On the road it was safer to sleep alone.

There was a scent of autumn in the air and that was slightly worrying because he had heard tales of the bitterness of northern winters. It rarely snowed in the south and he had only seen deep snow twice in his life.

Ranwin was reputed to be a thousand leagues north of Delbon. He considered what little he knew of the geography of this part of the country.

The land rose to the south while narrowing in size, forming a wedge of mountains with their tallest peeks just north of Delbon in the area known as the Delbar Heights.

When the River Jalon reached the rising edge of the Delbar Heights in the east, it turned south to skirt the edges of the heights and went all the way around them. The river flowed from Telmar, down south to Delbon, and then north to Ranwin.

They were following the Magicians Road east. The road ran between Ranwin and Telmar along the northern edge of the wedge. The hills to the south were largely barren, sparsely littered with whatever plants and grasses could survive on stone hills regularly swept by harsh winds. To the north of the road was undulating grassland with stands of trees wherever some natural feature discouraged animals from foraging.

The Magicians Road was well over a thousand years old, but had stood up well to the passage of time and represented the swiftest route to Telmar for travelers with wagons. On the other hand, wagons could be seen for miles and they were an easy target for robbers. That had been the fatal mistake of the children’s parents, that and their stupidity in travelling alone.

Daniel knew they would have to take the wagon with them when they left the camp. If they had only been taking the girls he would have lightened the load on two of his donkeys and brought them on those, but a baby was too delicate for that sort of travel. While Daniel had heard stories of nomads carrying babies while riding on horseback; he had no idea how they managed it.

The wagon came with a sturdy looking carthorse, which was a good thing because he was not going to use his horse to do something as menial as pulling a wagon.

He built up the fire before feeding and watering the horses and donkeys. When he got back to the fire, he found Jalia putting a kettle on to boil. That was close to the limits of her culinary skills, but she did try and help out now and then.

“It wasn’t worth getting up for the badger,” she said as he wished her a good morning.

“You’ll be driving the wagon?” Daniel asked and smiled at the poisoned look Jalia gave him. As he expected, the wagon and children were going to be his responsibility. However, he drew the line at baby changing and told Jalia to get on with it, though he noted that she ended up supervising Maya, who seemed skilled at the art.

After they finished breakfast, Daniel loaded up his donkeys and tied the ever patient Ferd to the back of the wagon with the other donkeys strung in a line behind him. With the baby safely stowed with the girls in the back of the wagon and Jet tied so he could walk behind, they set off down the road with Jalia leading the way on Swift.

They travelled less than a mile before Jalia led them off the road and into the vast expanse of grassland to the north. Daniel nodded sagely, because though they had not discussed leaving the road, Jalia was every bit as aware of their visibility as he was.

The wagon swayed alarmingly as they ploughed through a sea of tall grasses. Daniel relied on Jalia to have scouted the way well enough to allow the wagon to pass, but there was always the danger a wheel would fall into a hole she had missed and crack an axle.

They stopped at noon to rest the animals and to eat. Jalia was impatient to be off and harried Daniel as he watered the donkeys. He pulled her to one side, well away from the children, to find out what was going on.

“Nothing, Daniel, I just want to get to Telmar as soon as possible,” said Jalia, giving Daniel her most innocent look.

“That’s not it,” Daniel mused, and a thought occurred to him, “We wouldn’t be following the trail of those raiders, now would we?”

Jalia’s face flushed a little and Daniel knew he had guessed right.

“We’re hardly going to catch them with a wagon, are we? Their horses must have put them days ahead by now.”

“If they were on horseback that would be true, but they’re on foot,” Jalia said triumphantly, forgetting she had not yet admitted to Daniel she was following them.

“This is a bit much for petty revenge, isn’t it?”

“I do not regard being saddled with a baby as a petty matter, Daniel. Let alone those girls. These robbers are scum and deserve to die.”

“And when were you going to tell me? When I drove the wagon’s wheels over them? You take me and the children into danger and you say nothing.” Daniel’s anger mounted as he spoke.

Jalia looked a little embarrassed. “I didn’t want you frightening the children. You are hopeless at keeping secrets.”

“Why I ought to…” Daniel could not bring himself to complete the sentence. Jalia gave him a wicked grin.

“Spank me? You couldn’t do that in front of the children, now could you?”

“I suspect Maya would happily cut me a switch if she knew the danger you are putting her sisters into.”

Jalia shrugged.

“No matter, these robbers deserve to die and I intend to help them achieve that state.” She turned to go, but Daniel pulled her back. He held her by the shoulders and stared at this woman he loved.

“Didn’t you tell me that you were proud to be a thief?” he said, smiling warmly as he spoke.

“I’m a thief and not a robber.”

“What exactly is the difference?”

“I only steal from those who deserve it and can afford to lose it, and I don’t kill anybody while doing it… mostly.”

“So you steal from the rich and give to the poor?”

“There wouldn’t be much point in me stealing from anybody poorer than me.” Jalia lifted his hands from her shoulders and turned to go.

“When Gally Delbar stole your money belt, she was being a thief and not a robber?” Daniel shouted at Jalia’s retreating back

Jalia turned and smiled.
 
Daniel felt a chill as it was not a normal smile, but the baring of teeth in the way a tiger might, “Gally Delbar is a thief, and I would not dream of killing her because of it.”

Jalia walked away and said so softly that Daniel missed it completely, “I couldn’t make her suffer long enough if I killed her.”

Daniel went back to tightening the straps on his donkeys’ packs. Maya appeared out of the tall grasses, which were taller than she was, and stared solemnly at Daniel. “I would cut a long thick switch if you were to ask me to.”

“Do you always listen to private conversations?”

“Only to those of people who might get me killed,” she said and vanished back into the sea of grass.

A few hours later it was time to make camp for the night. Jalia rode back to the wagon and pointed out a stand of trees in the distance.

“If we light a fire, we will be visible for miles and these robbers are very likely to come and attack us,” Daniel pointed out.

Jalia grinned. “I like to know where my enemy is and chasing people is boring.”

“Where will we hide the kids?”

“There’s a small hollow we can put the girls in. The baby will have to stay with us because if she starts crying the robbers will hear her.”

Later that night, Daniel squatted by the campfire while eating stew from a plate. He had built the fire high so he was easy to see. Jalia washed clothes in the small brook below the campsite. She wore one of the skirts she found in the wagon and looked like a farmer’s wife. There were no weapons visible.

Daniel and Jalia were acutely aware of the eyes watching them. After their last experience, the robbers were wary of rushing in without making sure they would win. Jalia was getting bored washing the clothes and wished they would get on with it.

It was when the baby started crying that she got her wish. She dropped the clothes by the side of the brook and made her way back to camp. Daniel put his plate down and turned to the wagon. He should have been partially blinded by the bright flames of the fire. This would have been true if he had not kept his eyes shut while he ate.

The three men ran towards them with swords raised. They yelled as they ran to frighten their prey. Daniel dropped to one knee and retrieved the knife in his boot. He could have used his magic dagger to kill them all, but Jalia had insisted this would be unsporting. He threw the knife, which imbedded itself in the leading robber’s stomach.

Jalia pulled off her long skirt the moment the men started yelling. She had her leather skirt on underneath. Her sword was lying behind a fallen tree; she picked took it and swung her body over the trunk.

The robber she met was much bigger than her. He was built on large scale and probably thought he was a good swordsman, because he laughed as he swung his sword to cut off her head.

Jalia ducked and stabbed him in the leg before spinning behind him so she faced his rear. She stabbed him again, straight into his backside. The robber screamed, falling to his knees while turning to face her. Jalia kicked the sword from his hand.

He looked astonished as he found himself in front of her, unarmed and helpless.

“You have caused me a great deal of trouble,” Jalia said as she swung her sword to cut his throat. He gurgled his last breath very satisfactorily.

Daniel had a fight on his hands. The surviving robber had stopped him from retrieving his sword and forced Daniel back to the fire with a series of roundhouse swings. He was a big man, much bigger than Daniel and this prevented Daniel attacking him between swings, as he couldn’t get close fast enough.

When Jalia dispatched the second robber Daniel ran out of options. In another two steps, he would be in the fire. In fact, the heat was already burning his back.

This gave Daniel an idea and he turned from his attacker, crouched down and picked up a flaming branch whose end was sticking out of the fire. He flung it straight into the robber’s face.

The man was not a good enough swordsman to use his sword to knock it out of the way and brought up both arms instead. Daniel plucked the knife from the body of the first robber and stabbed the man in the back. He fell forwards into the fire and screamed for a good few minutes before he died.

“That was fun,” Jalia remarked as she dragged the burning body from the flames and threw a bucket of water over it.

Daniel was still catching his breath and unable to formulate a coherent reply. Maya and Yeta walked into the camp before he managed it. Maya carried a set of neatly trimmed three foot long whippy branches in her arms.

She walked over to Daniel and solemnly handed him the sticks. “You should use these now. Yeta and I are going back to the hollow.”

“What was that all about?” Jalia asked as she watched the girls walk out of the camp, hand in hand. “And what are you grinning about?”

Park and Ride

Jalia and Daniel travelled with the children for over two weeks through the sea of grass and did not see another person during the journey. They saw a lot of ancient ruins though, square carved stones and partially standing walls over such large areas they might have once been cities. They found broken temples on hilltops, sometimes with a tower standing despite the destruction that over a thousand winters could bring.

Daniel knew intellectually that the world was once filled with people, but it was one thing to know it and another thing to see the evidence first hand. Towns and cities collapsed into ruins when the magicians were no longer there to transport food and make their engines work. Starvation and death must have followed quickly. The lush forests of the south had destroyed the evidence in the years that followed, but out here on the northern plains, it was still easy to see.

Daniel wondered if that was why he and Jalia refrained from the use of their magic objects unless they had no choice. Maybe an ancestral memory made them wary of committing to magic, because if you did, and it failed, you were helpless. Ever since the Fairie had made his dagger magic and named it ‘sword’, he had avoided using it unless desperate. Jalia had learned a hard lesson in the limitations of her ring at the hands of the sand fairies.

However, there was no denying that the magic objects saved their lives on several occasion. The ring in particular would grant carefully worded wishes, provided you didn’t ask it for too much, but you could not trust in magic the way you could the cold steel of a sword.

So Daniel was a little surprised when Jalia returned from scouting ahead and told him she had asked the magic ring to guide her to the nearest inhabited place. It had led her to a farm ten miles or so from where they were.

“Why the need to find someone, Jalia? We’re still hundreds of miles from Telmar.”

“I feel caged by the children,” Jalia admitted a little shamefacedly, “They aren’t bad kids, but the baby needs so much attention and Maya and Yeta follow me everywhere.”

“That’s only because they admire you. And I have to deal with them most of the time while you’re off scouting. Maya has been learning to cook and she learns fast. I suspect Yeta is learning too, but you can never tell because she never says a word.”

“They are on edge and they put me on edge,” Jalia snapped. She knew her feelings weren’t reasonable, but then she didn’t want to be reasonable.

“They are on edge because they know we are going to leave them somewhere and they are afraid. Don’t think for a moment that they don’t know how you feel. Children pick up on these things.”

Daniel sighed. He knew Jalia had a point. Their life was completely unsuitable for children as young as Maya and Yeta, and would probably kill Serin if they didn’t find somewhere to leave them soon.

“All right, we’ll go to this farm and see if the people are appropriate. If they are suitable and willing, we’ll leave the children with them. But if they aren’t, we’ll take the children with us.”

Jalia smiled as if a huge load had been lifted from her mind. She mounted her horse as they prepared to break camp. Daniel was certain Maya and Yeta had been listening to their conversation. The two girls often appeared to disappear, but he had come to realize that was what they did when they wanted to know what the adults were thinking.

“What do you think of our plan?” Daniel asked, without raising his voice.

“Can’t we stay with you and Jalia until we get to Telmar?” Maya said, clambering up from inside the wagon to sit alongside him. Yeta stood up inside the wagon and leaned over so she could hear every word.

“Telmar is in the middle of a gold rush and must be the worst possible place to take a female child. The best place for the three of you would be a farm where you could learn to till the fields and become part of a family.”

“But I’m learning cooking with you and you could teach us to fight with swords and knives.”

Daniel shook his head.

“Jalia and trouble are bedfellows and I’m committed to be with her. Winter is coming and Serin will die if we cannot find you a proper home.”

Maya looked as stubborn as only a six year old can, but her face smoothed after a minute of thought. “Serin is our sister and we have to stay with her. Do you think this farmer will be nice?”

“Let us hope so.”

Daniel snapped the reins to encourage the carthorse to walk a little faster. Ten miles would take a long time over this interminable grass.

The farm was small and looked to be in a state of disrepair. There was a well in front of the house and a coral in which a couple of worn out horse chewed grass. A field had been marked out with a dry-stone wall and a dozen cattle stood within, looking bored.

The farm buildings consisted of a dilapidated barn with a door hanging half off and a small stone cottage. The windows were barred and had stout shutters that could be latched from the inside across the windows. The house door looked as though it had been built to withstand a siege, being made of oak planks held together with nailed iron bars.

Jalia returned to the wagon as they approached the farm, her horse Swift pranced alongside them, obviously hoping for a gallop sometime soon.

“Hello, the house!” Daniel shouted as they got to a hundred yards or so from its door. It wasn’t considered polite to get too close to anybody’s farm house without giving them opportunity to tell you to go away.

A sallow faced young woman in a dirty dress stumbled out of the house as though she had been pushed. She approached them hesitantly, wringing her hands together as she walked.

“What do you want?” she asked when she was close enough not to have to shout.

“We’re travelers seeking company and a solid roof over our heads for the night,” Daniel said, using the conventions of the south for greeting strangers. “We bring meat we have caught hunting and I am a fair cook. We would gladly exchange food for a place to sleep.”

“What do they want?” a man’s voice shouted from inside the house.

“That’s Teague, my man, and my name is Lonny. Dismount and be welcome.” Lonny turned back towards the house and shouted, “They’re travelers looking for a place to spend the night. They’ve brought food and will cook for us.”

A tall thin, surly looking man wearing a vest above his trousers walked out of the house and stared at them. He had a straggly beard, which was badly trimmed. Teague came over to the wagon and looked inside. Maya and Yeta stood up and stared back at him. He laughed good naturedly and the children smiled hesitantly.

“You have children,” Teague said as the girls leaned forward to get a better look at him.

“My name is Daniel and the woman on the horse is Jalia. The children are Maya and Yeta and there is a baby called Serin. Their parents met with misfortune on the road and we have looked after them since.”

“You appear to be a long way from home, Daniel. If my hearing is right. You’re certainly from the south, possibly from Delbon itself.” Teague said. “In search of your fortune in Telmar, if I do not miss my guess.”

“We are headed for Telmar. I’m a trader by profession and do not see myself wielding a shovel in the slim hope of finding gold.”

Teague clapped Daniel on the back as he got down from the wagon, “A man after my own heart. Who would want to wield a shovel for a living?”

Lonny was taken with the baby, and found the beautifully carved crib Serin lay in particularly fascinating, as she pointed out to Teague. Daniel set to work making a meal in the hearth of the house with Maya and Yeta staying close. Jalia was given a tour of the farm by Teague.

“So they aren’t your children then?” Teague asked as he helped her get water from the well.

“No, we’re looking for a suitable home for them,” Jalia said cautiously.

“It costs money to bring up a baby. There’s not much return for anyone in that.”

“The children come with a dowry.”

“Now what might that be?” Teague asked, appearing much more interested.

“The carthorse and wagon with its contents,” Jalia said casually. “I notice you and your wife have no children of your own, if you don’t mind me saying.”

Teague hung his head, “No, we’ve never been blessed, though who’s to know what tomorrow might bring?”

To Jalia’s surprise, Teague didn’t rise to the bait she dangled in front of him, but started talking about the weather and how cold it got in winter with the north winds having a clear run over the land. When they got back to the house, they were greeted by the heady aroma of spices mingling with cooking venison and the conversation lapsed as they waited for the food to cook.

Later, as they enjoyed herb tea, Teague broached the subject of the children.

“How would you feel about adding these children to our family, Lonny?”

Lonny jumped as though she had been bitten, but after a brief period of consideration she nodded. “Maya here can cook, though she won’t have the fancy herbs and I expect Yeta can make herself useful on the farm. I don’t know about Serin though, it’s a lot of work looking after a baby.”

“They come with a dowry of a youngish carthorse and a fine wagon,” Teague said. “Begging your pardon Daniel for raising such matters, but mistress Jalia here did mention it by the barn.”

“The children must be well treated,” Daniel cautioned. “We might well return to check.”

“I can’t say I won’t beat them if they misbehave or fail to work, but I’m not a cruel man,” Teague said and smiled at the two girls, “You wouldn’t be frightened of me as your father would you?” Maya and Yeta shook their heads.

“Is it a deal then?” Teague asked and Daniel looked over to Jalia who gave him a curt nod. Daniel held out his hand and the men shook on the deal.

“A celebration is in order.”

Teague went to a chest and produced a jug of strong liquor. They all drank to the health of the children and to the memory of their departed parents.

Next morning, Daniel and Jalia got ready to leave after saying farewell to Maya and Yeta. They rode slowly down the dust road that Teague told them would lead them to the town of Buran.

Lonny bustled around the house while Teague waited until Jalia and Daniel were out of sight, and then he cautiously followed them on the carthorse until the road took him to the top of a hill. He left the horse and crept up the hill to watch them travel out across the grassland until they mounted a ridge and passed out of sight. He laughed with satisfaction as he returned to the farm.

Much later in the day, Teague went back to the hill and checked there was no sign of Jalia and Daniel returning. The sun was setting and no one would risk riding the road at night, because it was so uneven.

During the day, Maya and Yeta had spent their time cleaning the inside of the farmhouse. Lonny had fussed over Serin, but mainly she spent the day going through the things in the wagon, though she didn’t bring any of them into the house.

Maya prepared the evening meal and used some of the spices Daniel left her. Teague was pleased with the meal and after he finished every last bite, he burped loudly. “That’s going to put your price up in the slave market,” he told them, laughing after he spoke.

Yeta shuddered and Maya looked confused. She wasn’t sure whether he was making a bad joke.

Lonny stroked Serin’s face and looked at Teague with longing, “Can’t we keep this one, please?”

“I’ve smothered all of yours, but I’ll tell you what. I’ll take this one to market in its fancy crib and see if anybody wants to buy it. If they don’t, I’ll smother it in Buran and sell the crib. Is that fair enough, my dear?” Teague lolled back in his chair and gave every impression of being a very satisfied man. “That was a good bit of business we did yesterday. I won’t need to work for a long while because of the money they will bring.”

Yeta and Maya were now thoroughly alarmed and stepped towards the door in the hope they might escape. Teague noticed their efforts and laughed.

“That bar is far too heavy for you to lift, so don’t bother to try. Once my dinner has settled, I think I’ll see what you look like naked. Don’t worry, you are too valuable as you are for me to use you, but there are still things you can do for me short of that.”

Lonny looked disgusted and hid her face against the wall. Maya and Yeta went to her for protection, but she pushed them away, sobbing quietly. This seemed to amuse Teague.